Balsall Heath Repair Cafe

The Old Print Works, and partner organisations in Balsall Heath and our local community include people with wide ranging skills and experience. This, with a focus on sustainability saw the start of Balsall Heath Repair Cafe.

Delayed a bit by the Covid Pandemic, we have been able to setup a Repair Cafe at The Old Print Works. All the menders offer their skills and knowledge on a voluntary basis – and with the concept of sharing skills and confidence in making safe repairs at home to your household items.

Saving on landfill, saving old items from needing to be thrown away, and enjoying the sharing of skills between all – building relationships, having fun and learning new things.

Balsall Heath Repair Café is based at the Old Print Works,  

498 – 506 Moseley Road
Birmingham
West Midlands
B12 9AH

https://www.facebook.com/balsallheathrepaircafe

Balsall Heath Repair Cafe Session Saturday 8th November 2025 12.30 to 4pm

At 1.30 and 3pm there will be a Mini (10-15 min) Workshop: ‘Get safe on the road’: How to pump tyres, oil a chain and if time allows, – adjust brakes.

While our repairers are multi talented and can help with many problems, we are piloting an info, when volunteer repairers have confirmed they are coming to give you an idea about lwhat items can be repaired. This will be updated as individual repairers confirm theire avaialblity during the week leading up the the session. Please check the list below a day or two before the Repair Cafe date. – (and also let us know if this is useful – thanks).

On 8th September we have got volunteer repairers for clothing, bikes and electrics/electronics.

We’ll also turn our hand to all sorts of things, so if you have something you’d like someone to look at, please bring it along.

Following that, the next Repair Cafes will be:

  • Saturday 10th January 2026
  • Saturday 14th March 2026

100tons

of landfill in Birmingham each year

11,000

bicycles are thrown away in the UK each year

42%

of people would like to know how to repair their broken things

FAQ

A repair cafe is a group of community skilled menders, who can help you repair small household items/ textiles and furnishings that may have otherwise had ended up in landfill because they are not viable to take to professional repairers

Sometimes the mender will guide you on skills, techniques and tools to show you how you can mend your item – for example, the webbing on an old chair/recovering an old chair seat/mending a hole in a clothing item/mending problems with your bicycle.e in a clothing item/mending problems with your bicycle. At other mender ‘stations’ the mender will repair the item if possible – this might be the sharpening of old kitchen implements and scissors/a simple bike repair/small electrical items (when this can be done in an electrically safe way)/jewellery repair/a small rip in a piece of upholstery. Please make sure to read and understand the disclaimer page before you agree to have your item fixed.

We want the repairs to be available to anybody, regardless of their financial status. So all repairs are carried out on a voluntary donation basis. All menders time is provided on a voluntary and unpaid basis. Some of our menders also professionally repair/make/mend larger items – the Repair Cafe would not be able to replace these professional services. Neither are menders going to say that you need to use their professional service for larger repairs. If your repair is outside of the scope of the Repair Cafe, the mender will advise you that a professional repair needs to be done – but will not specify that you need to use their professional service. If the repair requires a ‘part’ to complete, we will just ask you to cover the cost of the ‘part’. This might mean that you will bring an item that needs a part to be bought before the repair can be done, and you can then buy the part and bring it back next month. Any money received from donations will be used just to cover the running costs and insurance for the Repair Cafe – any surplus would be donated onto to local community projects.

The week before the Repair Cafe we will advertise on our social media the range of repair skills that will be available that month. Repairs will be offered on a first-come, first served basis.

Amazing! if you contact us either by our facebook page – facebook.com/BalsallHeathRepairCafe or email us BalsallHeathRepairCafe@gmail.com we will get back in touch with you